Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 87

This wide-chapp'd rascal-would thou might'st lie drowning The was.h.i.+ng of ten tides!"

_Baffle._ This was formerly a punishment of infamy inflicted on recreant knights, one part of which consisted in hanging them up by the heels, to which Falstaff probably refers in "1 Henry IV." (i. 2), where he says to the prince, "call me villain, and baffle me." And, further on (ii. 4): "if thou dost it half so gravely, so majestically, both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a rabbit-sucker, or a poulter's hare."[842] In "2 Henry IV." (i. 2), the Chief Justice tells Falstaff that "to punish him by the heels would amend the attention of his ears."

And in "All's Well that Ends Well" (iv. 3), where the lord relates how Parolles has "sat in the stocks all night," Bertram says: "his heels have deserved it, in usurping his spurs so long."

[842] See Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 46.

Spenser, in his "Fairy Queen" (vi. 7), thus describes this mode of punishment:

"And after all, for greater infamie He by the heels him hung upon a tree, And baffl'd so, that all which pa.s.sed by The picture of his punishment might see."

The appropriate term, too, for chopping off the spurs of a knight when he was to be degraded, was "hack"-a custom to which, it has been suggested, Mrs. Page alludes in the "Merry Wives of Windsor" (ii.

1):[843] "What?-Sir Alice Ford! These knights will hack, and so thou shouldst not alter the article of thy gentry."[844]

[843] Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, in his "Handbook Index to the Works of Shakespeare" (1866, p. 231), suggests this meaning.

[844] See Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 397.

Mr. Dyce,[845] however, says the most probable meaning of this obscure pa.s.sage is, that there is an allusion to the extravagant number of knights created by King James, and that _hack_ is equivalent to "become cheap or vulgar."

[845] Dyce's "Glossary," p. 197.

It appears, too, that in days gone by the arms, etc., of traitors and rebels might be defaced. Thus, in "Richard II." (ii. 3), Berkeley tells Bolingbroke:

"Mistake me not, my lord; 'tis not my meaning To raze one t.i.tle of your honour out."

Upon which pa.s.sage we may quote from Camden's "Remains" (1605, p. 186): "How the names of them, which for capital crimes against majestie, were erased out of the public records, tables, and registers, or forbidden to be borne by their posteritie, when their memory was d.a.m.ned, I could show at large." In the following act (iii. 1) Bolingbroke further relates how his enemies had:

"Dispark'd my parks, and fell'd my forest woods, From mine own windows torn my household coat, Raz'd out my impress, leaving me no sign."

_Bilboes._ These were a kind of stocks or fetters used at sea to confine prisoners, of which Hamlet speaks to Horatio (v. 2):

"Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting, That would not let me sleep: methought I lay Worse than the mutines in the bilboes."

This punishment is thus described by Steevens: "The _bilboes_ is a bar of iron with fetters annexed to it, by which mutinous or disorderly sailors were anciently linked together. The word is derived from Bilboa, a place in Spain where instruments of steel were fabricated in the utmost perfection. To understand Shakespeare's allusion completely, it should be known that, as these fetters connect the legs of the offenders very close together, their attempts to rest must be as fruitless as those of Hamlet, in whose mind 'there was a kind of fighting that would not let him sleep.' Every motion of one must disturb his partner in confinement. The _bilboes_ are still shown in the Tower of London, among the other spoils of the Spanish Armada."[846]

[846] Bilbo was also a rapier or sword; thus, in "Merry Wives of Windsor" (iii. 5), Falstaff says to Ford: "I suffered the pangs of three several deaths: first, an intolerable fright, to be detected ... next, to be compa.s.sed, like a good bilbo ...

hilt to point," etc.

_Brand._-The branding of criminals is indirectly alluded to in "2 Henry VI." (v. 2), by Young Clifford, who calls the Duke of Richmond a "foul stigmatick," which properly meant "a person who had been branded with a hot iron for some crime, one notably defamed for naughtiness." The practice was abolished by law in the year 1822.

The practice, too, of making persons convicted of perjury wear papers, while undergoing punishment, descriptive of their offence, is spoken of in "Love's Labour's Lost" (iv. 3), where Biron says of Longaville:

"Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers."

Holinshed relates how Wolsey "so punished a perjure with open punishment and open paper-wearing that in his time it was disused."

_Breech._ This old term to whip or punish as a school-boy is noticed in the "Taming of the Shrew" (iii. 1):

"I am no breeching scholar in the schools; I'll not be tied to hours nor 'pointed times"

-breeching being equivalent to "liable to be whipped."

In "Merry Wives of Windsor" (iv. 1), Sir Hugh Evans tells the boy page: "If you forget your 'quies,' your 'quaes,' and your 'quods,' you must be preeches" (breeched).

_Crown._ A burning crown, as the punishment of regicides or other criminals, is probably alluded to by Anne in "Richard III." (iv. 1):

"O, would to G.o.d that the inclusive verge Of golden metal, that must round my brow, Were red-hot steel, to sear me to the brain!"

Mr. Singer,[847] in a note on this pa.s.sage, quotes from Chettle's "Tragedy of Hoffman" (1631), where this punishment is introduced:

"Fix on thy master's head my burning crown."

And again:

"Was adjudg'd To have his head sear'd with a burning crown."

[847] "Shakespeare," vol. vi. p. 485; see "Boswell's Life of Johnson," vol. ii. p. 6.

The Earl of Athol, who was executed for the murder of James I. of Scotland, was, before his death, crowned with a hot iron. In some of the monkish accounts of a place of future torments, a burning crown is appropriated to those who deprived any lawful monarch of his kingdom.

_Pillory._ This old mode of punishment is referred to by Launce in the "Two Gentlemen of Verona" (iv. 4), where he speaks of having "stood on the pillory." In "Taming of the Shrew" (ii. 1), Hortensio, when he tells Baptista how he had been struck by Katharina because "I did but tell her she mistook her frets," adds:

"she struck me on the head, And through the instrument my pate made way; And there I stood amazed for a while, As on a pillory, looking through the lute."

It has been suggested that there may be an allusion to the pillory in "Measure for Measure" (v. 1), where Lucio says to the duke, disguised in his friar's hood: "you must be hooded, must you? show your knave's visage, with a pox to you! show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged an hour!" The alleged crime was not capital, and suspension in the pillory for an hour was all that the speaker intended.[848]

[848] Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 661; see Douce's "Ill.u.s.trations of Shakespeare," 1839, pp. 90, 91, 109; Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," vol. iii. p. 111.

_Press._ Several allusions occur to this species of torture, applied to contumacious felons. It was also, says Malone, "formerly inflicted on those persons who, being indicted, refused to plead. In consequence of their silence, they were pressed to death by a heavy weight laid upon the stomach." In "Much Ado About Nothing" (iii. 1), Hero says of Beatrice:

"she would laugh me Out of myself, press me to death with wit."

In "Richard II." (iii. 4) the Queen exclaims:

"O, I am press'd to death, through want of speaking!"

And in "Measure for Measure" (v. 1), Lucio tells the Duke that, "Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death, whipping, and hanging."

In the "Perfect Account of the Daily Intelligence" (April 16th, 1651), we find it recorded: "Mond., April 14th. This Session, at the Old Bailey, were four men pressed to death that were all in one robbery, and, out of obstinacy and contempt of the Court, stood mute, and refused to plead." This punishment was not abolished until by statute 12 George III. c. 20.

_Rack._ According to Mr. Blackstone, this "was utterly unknown to the law of England; though once, when the Dukes of Exeter and Suffolk, and other ministers of Henry VI., had laid a design to introduce the civil law into this kingdom as a rule of government, for the beginning thereof they erected a rack of torture, which was called, in derision, the Duke of Exeter's daughter; and still remains in the Tower of London, where it was occasionally used as an engine of state, not of law, more than once in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. But when, upon the a.s.sa.s.sination of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, it was proposed, in the Privy Council, to put the a.s.sa.s.sin to the rack, in order to discover his accomplices, the judges (being consulted) declared unanimously, to their own honor and the honor of the English law, that no such proceeding was allowable by the law of England." Mr. Hallam observes that, though the English law never recognized the use of torture, yet there were many instances of its employment in the reign of Elizabeth and James; and, among others, in the case of the Gunpowder Plot. He further adds, in the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth "the rack seldom stood idle in the Tower." Of the many allusions to this torture may be mentioned Sebastian's word in "Twelfth Night" (v. 1):

"Antonio! O my dear Antonio!

How have the hours rack'd and tortured me, Since I have lost thee."

In "Measure for Measure" (v. 1), Escalus orders the "unreverend and unhallow'd friar" (the Duke disguised) to be taken to the rack:

"Take him hence; to the rack with him!-We'll touse you Joint by joint."